Frederick Starr

Strange Peoples Frederick Starr

Peoples differ in so many ways. There are tall Patagonians and short Bushmen. There are white peoples, and black, yellow, and brown peoples. There are peoples whose bodies are so covered with hair as almost to be called furry, and there are peoples whose faces even are hairless except for eyebrows and eyelashes. There are lively peoples and there are sluggish peoples; gay peoples and sad ones. Negroes do not think and feel like white men, and the Chinaman thinks and feels differently from either. All peoples have their own customs. When we speak of other peoples as Strange Peoples, we must never 2forget that we are as strange to them as they are to us. We think it curious that the Chinese dwarf, by bandaging, the feet of their women; they think it strange that we do not. To us the Chinese face seems much too flat; the Chinese think ours are like the face of an eagle and that they are harsh and cruel. We think the flat, wide nose of the negro is ugly; negroes think it far handsomer than ours. So we will remember that all these peoples are "strange" only because they are unlike us: that we ourselves are just as strange as they are. They have as much right to their ideas and customs as we have to ours: often indeed we might find theirs better than our own.